The Cryptic
by acouta
Summary: A strange light keeps visiting Hermione while she sleeps, and now someone is following her everywhere.........someone very familiar indeed.......
1. Lights And Discoveries

TITLE: The Cryptic  
  
AUTHOR: Acouta (me!!!!)  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry potter characters BUT I WISH I DID!!!! I'D BE A MILLIONAIRE!!!!! But I don't, nothing except this storyline. It's all J.K Rowling's.  
  
Chapter One - Lights and Discoveries  
  
Hermione awoke and within an instant, was sitting bolt upright in bed, fully awake. It had been a deep sleep, too. It wasn't her dream that had awoken her, she knew that; no, it was that.... that thing again. As she watched, a small circle of light which shone with a pale, barely visible blue glow, hovered in front of her for a moment and then darted away. It had been visiting.......no, she had been seeing it, every night since the summer holidays had begun. Maybe it was a sign, she was going to be in her seventh and final year of Hogwarts after all. Maybe it happened to everyone at this stage in their life. She was muggle-born, she didn't really know these things. But she didn't remember reading anything about it in any of the books on magic she'd ever read, and she'd read a few. No, something very odd was happening here, and she had to get to the bottom of it. She glanced at her bedside clock. "Four-thirteen in the morning,' she sighed, 'again.' That was the other odd thing; every night when she awoke, and the glowing orb left her room, it was four-thirteen. That had to mean something. She yawned, and could feel her eyelids drooping. "But it'll have to wait until morning.' She laid her head back down onto the pillow, and within minutes was fast asleep.  
  
*  
  
"What's the matter with you, Hermione? Hermione?" Her mother's voice penetrated her brain, which at this moment was clouded in a sleepy fog. "Pardon?" she yawned. "I said, what's the matter? All of the holiday you've been like this. You're always tired and pale, you used to be so active. Maybe you need vitamins." Hermione rolled her eyes behind her mum's back; her mum was driving her to London so she could go to Diagon Alley, she'd arranged to meet up with Harry and Ron. "I don't need vitamins, mum. I.......I'm just nervous about.....about going back to school.' She didn't like lying to her mother, but she just didn't think her mother would understand about pale lights floating around in her room. "It's my N.E.W.Ts this year, I can't help but think I should be revising, or something." "Oh, don't be silly, Hermione! You've been swatting up all summer! It's time you had a break. You haven't seen Harry or Ron for over a month. Aren't you looking forward to seeing them?" Of course, she was looking forward to seeing them, they were her best friends after all, and maybe they could give her some information, or advice, or something. She didn't want to try and explain it all in a letter as it took so long, and you had to wait for a reply and everything. She'd rather be able to speak to them face-to-face. But "Mm-hm," was all she said.  
  
*  
  
Her mum dropped her off in Vauxhall Road, and she walked from there to the Leaky Cauldron, which led to the gateway of Diagon Alley. She was wondering what she would say when she saw Harry and Ron. What would they say? She had changed quite a lot. While on holiday, she had thought at length about her final year, and, being eighteen, about how she looked.  
  
She had stared at herself in the mirror.  
  
"Good figure, I suppose, but look at what I'm wearing!" She had been wearing a long green skirt and a a brown jumper, with her hair just frizzed up and messy, as usual. She had decided it was time for a change. The hair was the first victim. She'd had it straightened and highlighted, with just a wispy fringe cut in, and feathered around her face. She'd then chucked out all her old, hideous clothes and bought a whole new wardrobe, consisting of jeans, fashionable tops, and many many accessories. Right now she was wearing a pair of tight-fitting bootleg faded jeans, a tight tankini top and a pair of Skechers. She'd wiped herself out money- wise on the shoes alone. Her hair fell delicately around her shoulders, she looked great (if she did say so herself). The Leaky Cauldron appeared in front of her. Her nervousness flared up inside her, but she steeled herself and pushed open the door anyway. The old pub was quiet. Suddenly she saw something move quickly out of the corner of her eye. Whatever it was, it had darted out of the back door which led to Diagon Alley. Oh well, I suppose there are a lot of strange things that come in here, she thought, and put it out of her mind. She was about to just head out the back and on her way, but then she realised she was eighteen. She could stop and have a drink, after all. She supposed it was the same for the Wizarding world as it was for the Muggle world. Casually she approached the bar. "What can I get you, m'dear?" came a voice. The speaker then hobbled into sight, it was Tom the inkeeper. "Umm, I don't know........do you have Foster's?" "What's that?" "Never mind,' she said quickly. "Carling? Carlsberg? Any lager at all?" She had tried some lager while she was on holiday once. It had been alright. Tom shook his head to all of these. "I've never 'eard of any o' them, missy," he said. "Well, what do you have then?"  
  
Tom took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling.  
  
"We got Grindal's Old Spectacular, Strangebrew, Famous Owl, Wizardbrau, Molda's Special Hairy, Potentwasser, Throatstripper, Blindeye's, Knockdown, and this week's guest ale, Wizard's Knob." Hermione slowly took this all in. "Wh....what's the, uh, the Blindeye's like?" she asked cautiously. "Oh, I don't think you'd want that, miss." "Why not?" "The name says it all, really." "Oh." "The ladies that come in 'ere, (except the hags, they go for Throatstripper), usually go for Famous Owl. Sounds classy, they say, or somethin' like that." "Alright, I'll have half a pint of Famous Owl, please," said Hermione. "Hang on, miss, I gotta se how old you are first," said Tom. "Oh.....I forgot my I.D...." she said, sheepishly, but Tom just looked confused. "What's I.D? I do it like this," he said, reaching for his wand. "gots to be eighteen, see." He pointed his wand at Hermione, and said "Maturio!" A greenish haze surrounded Hermione. Tom smiled. "That's all in order then, miss. Half a Famous Owl?" Hermione nodded, and spent the immediate period of time after drinking it trying to get the taste out of her mouth.  
  
The drink had been awful, but she felt decidedly less nervous as she walked through the gateway into Diagon Alley. She felt lighter on her feet, too, and happier. She passed Flourish and Blotts, Ollivander's, and Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions before she saw Harry. He was sitting outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, with a huge sundae in front of him. Ron was nowhere to be seen. She walked up to him with a big grin. "Hi you!! How are you? I haven't seen you for AGES!" She stopped short at the look on his face. "What? Do I have something on me? And where's Ron?" she asked, brushing at her clothes. "He......he couldn't come," Harry said simply. "Why not?" "You'd better sit down, Hermione. I've got some terrible news." Hermione's heart beat faster. What could keep Ron away from seeing his two best friends? She knew that whatever it was, it was going to be really bad.  
  
Harry paused, then took a long, steadying breath.  
  
"It's Ron's dad...............he's.......he's been killed." 


	2. Mystery Saviour

TITLE: The Cryptic  
  
AUTHOR: Acouta (me!!!!)  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nope........still nothing belongs to me, except the story (so proud!!) it's J.K Rowlings.   
  
A/N - Okay promises promises there will be a little more Malfoy in this chapter, but not much. MUCH MORE NEXT CHAPTER promise! I'm updating real quick cuz I'm going away until the 4th of September!! But I will have lots more by then so don't wander off!!  
  
Chapter Two - Mystery Saviour  
  
Hermione's mind went numb. She was aware that there were other people walking by, talking and chattering amongst themselves, but she couldn't hear them, and she could barely see them.  
  
Ron's dad........dead........  
  
She slowly realised that Harry was talking again.  
  
"Are you okay?" he said, looking at her nervously.  
  
"Yes.....just a ....just a shock......" Hermione then seemed to snap out of whatever kind of trance she was in. "Who cares about me, what about Ron?! How did this happen? Is he okay? When did you hear from him? We should -- "  
  
"Calm down, Hermione. We need to keep it together, for Ron's sake."   
  
Harry sounded business-like, but Hermione could see that he was hiding terrible sadness. She sat quietly and let him speak.  
  
"It happened about a week ago. There'd been some flare-up of Death-Eater activity in Hogsmeade, and because it's so close to Hogwarts, the Ministry said it was a top priority so they sent a team of Aurors down to just 'assess the situation.' They didn't realise how bad it was. Ron's dad was heading up the investigation. They'd had reports of Death-Eater sightings near the Forbidden Forest, where it borders Hogsmeade, so they went there. They'd only just got into the Forest when they were ambushed by about twenty Death-Eaters, so they were badly outnumbered, there was only seven in the team, which is bad even though there were six Aurors there. The Death-Eaters........they used the Unforgivable Curses..........put half the team under the Imperius Curse so they were attacking their own friends, and some had the Cruciatus Curse put on them.........."  
  
He paused, seeing Hermione's white face.  
  
"Do you want me to go on?" he asked.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine......it's so horrible....." she whispered. Harry nodded.  
  
"I know. I don't know how people can do things like that. Anyway, they don't know exactly what happened, but from the stories they've pieced together from the survivors," he said this word with a shudder, "they think it happened like this: Ron's dad had the Imperius Curse on him, but he was fighting it and they couldn't control him. So they hit him with the Cruciatus curse instead. Then they commanded another member of his team to perform.....Avada Kedavra......"  
  
Hermione put her hand to her mouth.  
  
"And then they just....ran off," he finished. Hermione looked puzzled.  
  
"'Ran off?'" she repeated.  
  
"Yes. Two other Aurors died from the Cruciatus Curse, and the four that were left carried them out of the forest and back into Hogsmeade, to raise the alarm about the Death-Eaters."  
  
"But, wait a minute," Hermione began, "Why would they have cursed Ron's dad and then got another member of his own team to ki --- to perform Avada Kedavra?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe so the curse can't be traced back to the owner's wand. Maybe it was just some sick little game they were playing. All I know is they ran off when they killed Ron's dad."  
  
Hermione had, if possible, gone even paler than before.  
  
"That's not all," said Harry. "One of the survivors recognized the voice of the Death Eater who put the Cruciatus Curse on Ron's dad. The Ministry sent out Aurors immediately to take him in."  
  
"Who was it?"  
  
"Lucius Malfoy."  
  
*  
  
The shops of Diagon Alley had never looked so drab or lifeless. Everything seemed covered in a swathe of grey as Hermione walked back towards the gateway. She was still in shock. She kept hoping that her eyes would snap open and she'd be in her room, sitting up in bed. Even in her room with the strange light would be appealing. The light........she'd forgotten about that, and she hadn't asked Harry about it, but somehow it didn't seem important anymore. Wild thoughts pre-occupied her mind, so much so that she didn't see the person trying to get away from her until it was too late, and she had run straight into them and knocked them backwards.  
  
"Sorry," she mumbled, and looked up. And froze.  
  
It was Malfoy.  
  
A vicious anger gripped her, she grabbed her wand and the front of Malfoy's robes, and pulled him towards her, so that the tip of her wand was resting on his temple.  
  
"You will pay for what your family has done," she hissed in his face. "You will pay......"  
  
"No! Stop! I have to--" he began, but Hermione had already raised her wand, and the spell was rolling off her tongue as two burly figures grabbed her arms and knocked her wand out of her hand. She screamed, and kicked out, but the two people holding here were very strong. She stopped struggling, and fixed Malfoy with a look of pure hatred. He shrank away.  
  
"Please listen to me..........there's something you need to know......."  
  
"I need to know NOTHING from you, you monster! All your family brings to the world is evil, and now they've done something more than evil! I hate you, and I hate your father!"  
  
She finally struggled free of the grip that was controlling her, snatched back her wand, and ran, crying, through the gateway and back into the Muggle world.  
  
*  
  
The next few days went by in a blur. Hermione couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep, all she did was sit in her room and cry. She had so much anger and sorrow, there wasn't room for anything else. The only comfort to her was that the light had stopped visiting her.   
  
Slowly her anger faded, but the void in it's absence was filled with more sorrow. She had no contact from anyone, but she didn't much care. She didn't know how she would cope at Hogwarts when it was time to go back..........  
  
Then she recieved the letter.  
  
The owl that delivered it was unfamiliar, and the handwriting on the envelope was equally so.  
  
She paid the owl, and carefully opened the envelope. A cutting from the Daily Prophet fell out, and a single piece of folded parchment which she put to one side. Carefully she lit a candle (it was early in the morning). She looked at the cutting. It was a front-page article.  
  
____________________________________________________________________  
  
MINISTRY SLAUGHTER - MYSTERY SAVIOUR - MORE COULD HAVE DIED  
  
The news of the recent killing of two Ministry Aurors and Arthur Weasley, the recently appointed head of the Department for Renegade Control, hit the Wizarding community hard last week. But some new information has come to light about this tragedy from the four surviving Aurors.Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, read this statement last night:   
  
"Each of the four Aurors was under either the Imperius or Cruciatus Curse at the time they say this event took place, but nonetheless their stories corroborate with each other. They say that, just after Arthur Weasley was killed, a hooded figure appeared out of the trees, a figure that was not a Death-Eater. He took his wand and performed the Inflamari charm on the nearest Death-Eater, setting him on fire. He then performed the Impedimenta Charm on a numberof other Death-Eaters, and then Disapparated. The remaining Aurors started to fight back, causing the Death-Eaters to scatter."  
  
Whoever intervened in this tragic event could have stopped it from being a lot worse, and the Ministry of Magic is urging that person to come forward. The Minister for Magic is considering bestowing on him or her the Order of Merlin, Second Class.  
  
____________________________________________________________________  
  
Hermione stared at the article. A lot worse?! How is three people being killed not as bad as it gets?   
  
She took a deep breath, and concentrated on the important thing. Someone else had been there that day. Someone had tried to help. Somehow, she had the strange feeling that these events were connected to the light. She couldn't explain it, she just felt it. But why would someone send her this article? Unless.........  
  
She remembered about the letter, lying forgotten on her bed. She picked it up and unfolded it. It was hardly a letter, the person had only written three words:  
  
It Was Me.  
  
Hermione gasped. And then, as if on cue, the light appeared. She looked at the clock. Four-thirteen.  
  
********************************************************************  
  
A/N - This seems really disjointed to me, but there is a plot. And there will be LOTS MORE Malfoy next chapter :P !!  
  
Michi Yuy - Thanks for my first nice review! You will find out soon enough......  
  
I would put in more reviewers but I updated really quick so I only had one at the time, so if you reviewed like the ever so nice people that you are, I'll put you in next chapter!! Byeee :) 


	3. The Answer

Title: The Cryptic  
  
Author: Acouta (ME!!)  
  
DISCLAIMER: *checks copy of OotP* No, I don't own anything to do with Harry Potter except this rather fruity plot, it's J.K Rowlings so don't sue me, I'm just having fun!!  
  
Chapter Three - The Answer  
  
So the first of September had rolled around again, Hermione thought as she glanced at her bedside clock. It was ten past midnight. And today, for the last time, she would be travelling on the Hogwarts Express back to school.  
  
For the last time.  
  
This thought only served to make Hermione feel even worse about going back to Hogwarts. She was usually so level-headed, but now for the first time in her life, she didn't know what to do. What would she say to Ron? How would he react? Would he even be there at all? And what, what was she going to do when she found out who had been sending that light to her?  
  
She was very close to knowing, too. Since she wanted to do nothing but sit in her room, Hermione had begun to read every single one of her books from cover to cover, hoping to find something, anything, that referred to pale lights. Of course, she had picked out some titles that looked promising first, but when none yielded the information she seeked, she resorted to just trawling through the endless pages, hoping. And she had found what she was looking for, in a book entitled The Secrets of Watching. The bit she was most interested in was only a short paragraph. She now picked the book up and re-read the paragraph.  
  
The Cryptic  
  
This charm is quite complex to perform, although the end result is quite simple. The Cryptic allows the one who performs it to watch anyone they so desire to, with little or no chance of being found out. The Cryptic itself manifests as a minute ball of light, hardly visible except at night, and it will find the person it is supposed to be watching and will follow them until a specific time and date preset by the one who performs the charm. They are able to see what The Cryptic is seeing through the use of a mirror, any mirror. The only drawback to this charm is that, when the charm is performed, it will take a part of the maker with it, inside it, and so if the Cryptic is caught, it is fairly easy to discover who has performed the charm.  
  
She looked down to the bottom of the page. There was the important part, the part that told her how to catch it. All she had to do was point her wand at the light and say 'Confinious.' Simple as that. She looked at the clock again. Twelve twenty-five. A thought sneaked into her brain...............  
  
What if she did it now? The light would hopefully be appearing in less than four hours, and she could catch it. Technically speaking she shouldn't perform magic outside school but, technically speaking, it was also the start of term, so surely she was allowed? Yes, she assured herself. And besides, they wouldn't expel the best student in the school for something like that.  
  
She rummaged through her trunk and found her wand. Then she nestled down into her blanket and waited.  
  
One o'clock.  
  
Two fifteen.  
  
Three o'clock.  
  
Three forty-five.   
  
Three fifty-nine.............four o'clock.   
  
Suddenly her window was briefly illuminated as the sphere of light passed through it unscathed. It floated around for a while, and then settled in mid-air just at the end of Hermione's bed. The moment was here. She braced herself, and took out her wand.  
  
"Confinious!" she said, and out of the end of her wand shot something bright white and writhing. It snaked around the ball of light, crackling like lightning, and then formed a white mist around it. The Cryptic started shaking as if trying to break loose. Hermione put her wand down.  
  
"Wow. I really am good....." she muttered. She stood up and walked over to look at what she had caught. It looked rather like a large pearl. She felt slightly bad at having caught it, but shook off this feeling as she realised that she would find out who was watching her.  
  
"Now if only I knew how to get the information out of it."  
  
Again she began to rummage through her books. She was stopped mid-search by a faint humming noise. She looked at the imprisoned light. It was shaking so much it was a blur. The hum was growing louder. Hermione was sure her parents would hear it, so she grabbed her wand, pointed it at each of the four walls of her room.  
  
"Sonorous Impervious." This would soundproof the room.  
  
The hum was now starting to make her spine tingle, and small objects danced across her shelves. And then, the light imploded on itself.  
  
Hermione dived underneath her bed as a fury of light rushed towards her, but there was no need. It passed through her. She stuck her head out, and gaped at what she saw.  
  
She was surrounded by images. She could still see her bedroom but the images were hovering in the air, shimmering like holograms. But this amazing visual display paled into comparison next to the actual things she was seeing.   
  
A shadow approaching a mirror, holding up it's hands. A serpent entwined around someone's neck, someone hiding in darkness, someone watching someone............watching her! Then a number shone in the air, a very familiar number to her now: Four Thirteen. As she watched, the numbers scattered into particles, and then reformed to make the letters D and M. Something flared up deep inside her. The letters then burned red, and were emblazoned onto an envelope, which was being held by a figure she couldn't quite make out, but detail was not needed. The blonde hair, the proud stance, the glowing initials................It was Malfoy.  
  
"Malfoy?!" Hermione shouted, as the images began to change again. "Malfoy sent me that letter? He....he went against his own father..........."  
  
She looked up. And stared at herself.  
  
A replica Hermione flickered above her. As she watched, her double turned to face someone. The two stared into each other's eyes, and kissed passionately. Hermione felt numb.   
  
She had just watched herself kissing none other than Draco Malfoy.  
  
A/N - sorry this is such a short chapter, I will have loads more next time but I thought I'd do this one now so there are at least three chapters before I go away! I still only have one review but I love writing, so I'm just putting up the chapters anyway in vague hope. 


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